Mittuniversitetet

The aim of this study is to examine how Swedish private archival institutions are working with the long-term preservation and access to their digital film collections. The issue of digital preservation has featured in many studies but fewer of these have concentrated on the challenges of private archives. This is what motivated my study. A qualitative methodology with a case study as a method have been applied to the study. The empirical material consists of qualitative interviews with five co-workers from five different Swedish private archival institutions and a literature review of studies that I found relevant to the phenomenon under study. The study uses the Total Archive and Records Continuum Model (RCM) as the conceptual and theoretical framework for analysis. The Total Archive theory means that types of artefacts such as films from both the public and private sectors are important inproviding a comprehensive picture of society. The RCM shows how different activities within the institutions can be traced to different dimensions in the model, where all parts play a role for the whole, in a continuum for how information is preserved and made available. The results of the study confirm earlier observations from earlier studies regarding the challenges of long-term preservation of digital artefacts which are; organizational, technological, lack of sufficient funding and the issue of copyright. It contributes to the existing research gap on the long-term digital preservation challenges faced by private archives.